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Press Release

The IRS is re-defining social welfare group activity to regulate tea party and patriot groups out of existence

Washington, DC- After months of educating citizens on proposed IRS rules changes that would cripple and effectively eliminate 501(c)(4) civic engagement activity, FreedomWorks submitted official comments to the IRS on behalf of its 6 million members nationwide. The document, signed by FreedomWorks Executive Vice President Adam Brandon, listed the organization’s many objections, along with a call for field hearings.

FreedomWorks has been directing its membership to submit comments in protest on the IRS website before the February 27 deadline through IRSTarget.com, which redirects right to the IRS official comment page. To date, the IRSTarget website has received over 33,000 visits redirecting to the IRS comment page, and the IRS has received a total of almost 76,200 comments.

“FreedomWorks is calling for field hearings that would allow citizens to testify and voice their concerns with the proposed rules changes,” Brandon commented. “We want to hear from the bureaucrats who wrote these rules, and get a definition on what exactly constitutes a ‘social welfare group.’ We want to know how this program will be safeguarded against abuse, and how specifically the IRS plans to ensure that the targeting scandal against conservatives and libertarians will not repeat itself.”

“It's not the IRS's responsibility to determine what constitutes a ‘social welfare group.’ It's not their responsibility to intimidate individual Americans who are trying to partake in their basic civic duties, and it's certainly not their responsibility to figure out ways to regulate specific kinds of groups out of existence. This isn't a partisan issue- it's a matter of free speech. Today it's conservative and tea party groups, but a couple years down the road it could be another demographic of Americans facing this kind of bureaucratic censorship.”

The proposed rules changes would suppress the ability of grassroots groups – of any political affiliation – to organize and participate in basic civic engagement activity, including voter registration drives, voter education and non-partisan candidate forums. Many non-profit organizers would have to hire lawyers in order to ensure that they are complying with the complicated rules, an impossible expense for smaller “mom and pop” patriot groups meeting in local communities. Some well-intended activists will undoubtedly break the unclear laws without even knowing it.

FreedomWorks is a grassroots service center to a community of over 6 million activists who believe in individual liberty and constitutionally-limited government. For more information, please visit www.FreedomWorks.org or contact Jackie Bodnar at JBodnar@FreedomWorks.org.

Americans often hear from radical leftists that “the rich need to pay their fair share” of income taxes. The rhetoric is hard to avoid. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) based partly based his failed 2016 presidential campaign on soaking the wealthy in taxes, and House and Senate Democrats railed against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, H.R. 1, because it lowered tax rates across the board, including on higher-income earners.

Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee want to know why the Department of Justice (DOJ) has denied petitions by Americans whose money was seized by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The seized money was subject to federal civil asset forfeiture hearings in which the individual from whom the money was taken had to prove that it wasn’t connected to any wrongdoing.

Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) are renewing the push for their bill, The Free Flow of Information Act of 2017, H.R.4382, to protect our First Amendment rights. It is identical to a bill that then-Congressman Mike Pence co-authored in 2007. This legislation must be passed in order to ensure the legitimacy of our media, and to protect journalists from government abuse.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has created a secret watch list of individuals who they claim pose potential threats to airport security. This ridiculous “safety precaution” allows the TSA, an unaccountable government agency, to get away with unnecessary and invasive searches and violates travelers’ privacy rights.

On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to support the Preserving Taxpayers’ Rights Act, H.R. 3220, introduced by Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.). The bill would bring necessary reforms to allow taxpayers to resolve tax disputes with the IRS without being forced to litigate in court which is inefficient, expensive, and time consuming for taxpayers, the IRS, and the courts.

Civil asset forfeiture, a tool used by law enforcement to seize property from individuals because they have merely been accused of a crime, has gotten a lot more scrutiny in recent days due to its lack of oversight and abuse. What many may not know though is that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) also has the ability to seize property from businesses it is investigating. Fortunately, to address the abuses by the organization, Tax Policy Subcommittee Chairman Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) have introduced a bill to defend business owners from IRS forfeiture overreach.

Section 702, the controversial aspect of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which allows for mass surveillance of American Citizens, is set to phase out at the end of 2017. Some in congress have introduced measures that would make Section 702, in its current form, permanent law and avoid any reforms which might grant Americans greater privacy protections. Here are 10 reasons why that is an absolutely horrific idea.

The global community has been rocked by tragedy after tragedy over the last several weeks, but few instances have captured the international spotlight as readily as the recent attacks in London . The international community was quick to offer their support to the beleaguered Britain, but a troubling response came from that nation's own leader.

Freedom of speech ranks chiefly among the civil rights protected by the First Amendment.The founders recognized that a free society must be allowed to grapple with conflicting ideas and viewpoints in order to flourish. Students have been taught the significance of free speech for centuries and American society has counted on educators to ensure the next generation of citizens are well equipped to handle opposing viewpoints. The great tradition of schools and universities being bastions of free speech and civil discourse has been ingrained in the American psyche and upheld by academics and administrators alike, until recently.